LEEDS: Mark Renshaw regards his return to service as British sprinter Mark Cavendish's right-hand man in the Tour de France as a massive challenge, despite his role in so many of the lightning fast ''Manx Missile's'' greatest wins.

For Renshaw, 31, this Tour will be his first as Cavendish's lead-out rider for the sprints since his return to his team after two years racing as a protected sprinter on the Dutch Rabobank and Belkin teams.

Tough assignment: Mark Renshaw will do plenty of hard yards at the Tour de France. Photo: Getty Images

The Bathurst rider is one of the best when it comes to helping Cavendish, including directing the team's lead-out train to sets up the Briton over the last three kilometres and providing him with the last slipstream from which to launch his sprint.

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But Renshaw believes that the depth of sprinting and organised lead-out talent is now much higher than when he last starred in the job for Cavendish at the Tour as teammates from 2009 to 2011 on the disbanded HTC-Highroad team.

For this year's Tour starting on Saturday, Renshaw cites the biggest dangers as being Germany's Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) and Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) and recently crowned French champion Arnaud Demare (FDJ.fr) and their teams.

"There is more depth in the sprinting now than ever. Before with ''Cav'' we had good sprinters, but we didn't have three great sprinters like we have now," Renshaw said on Thursday. "Then throw some other guys like Demare in the mix, that's certainly tough.

"For me it is going to be really important to make sure [Cavendish] is in a better position because if we make any mistakes it will be obvious and Lotto-Belisol or Giant-Shimano will be there to pick up the pieces if it falls apart.

"Giant-Shimano always have a certain tactic where they wait and wait and try and come at the last moment. Lotto to some extent have a very similar tactic.

"So, we are going to have to ride smart and make sure we don't make any mistakes in the last two or three kilometres."

Renshaw said Cavendish was "up" for the Tour's first stage in Yorkshire on Saturday – 190.5 kilometres from Leeds to Harrogate.

A victory by Cavendish would provide the Tour with the perfect start, considering it would be before his home crowd. And for Cavendish it would also see him claim the Tour's yellow jersey as overall leader for the first time in his career.

"It's the big objective for us. We have come here to win the first stage and take the yellow jersey with Mark Cavendish," Renshaw said.